--- title: "Discussion on \"Are design patterns still relevant?\" | Hashnode" description: "Discussion on \"Are design patterns still relevant?\". Design patterns became popular during the 90s, when the “Gang of Four (GoF)” (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides) wrote the well-known book:\n\n\"Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software\"\n\nThis book is one..." url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42" --- [Feed](https://hashnode.com/feed) / Discussion # [Are design patterns still relevant?](https://mariocervera.com/are-design-patterns-still-relevant?utm_source=hashnode&utm_medium=feed) Design patterns became popular during the 90s, when the “Gang of Four (GoF)” (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides) wrote the well-known book: "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" This book is one... Dec 29, 2020 · 10 min read · mariocervera.com Read the article - [#design-patterns](https://hashnode.com/tag/design-patterns) - [#software-engineering](https://hashnode.com/tag/software-engineering) - [#programming](https://hashnode.com/tag/programming) - [#software-architecture](https://hashnode.com/tag/software-architecture) - [#design](https://hashnode.com/tag/design) ## Written by [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) @macerub · Spain [View profile](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) Software craftsman. I write about Software Engineering (clean code, design, testing, ...) and also about Algorithms & Data Structures. ## Responses 8 Markdown supported · ⌘↵ to post [Adesanoye Samson](https://hashnode.com/@Kingzamzon) [Dec 31, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed981db2cf2458fe325e7d) Amazing article talk about everything i have read concerning design patterns [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 31, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed981db2cf2458fe325e7d#reply-5fedeeb6b2cf2458fe326ad6) Thanks for your kind words Adesanoye! 😊 [Lorbic](https://hashnode.com/@lorbic) [Dec 31, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed6bf2017ebb59232dbfed) Loved this article. Hey can you suggest me a book on design patterns. [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 31, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed6bf2017ebb59232dbfed#reply-5fedef76017ebb59232dd427) For me, the canonical reference "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" continues to be the best book. But, it may be a bit dense for inexperienced developers. If that's your case, I suggest you read "Head-First Design Patterns" first. This book is more introductory and will help you understand the other book better. You may also want to have a look at: [refactoring.guru/design-patterns](https://refactoring.guru/design-patterns) [Lorbic](https://hashnode.com/@lorbic) [Jan 1, 2021](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed6bf2017ebb59232dbfed#reply-5feef88eb2cf2458fe327c17) Thank You, I'll read both of the books. [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Divyajyoti Ukirde](https://hashnode.com/@divyajyotiuk) [Dec 31, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed4907b2cf2458fe325422) Starting my career I had just studied the patterns and could not really recognise when seeing the codebase. There's actually a need to know these patterns. [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 31, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fed4907b2cf2458fe325422#reply-5fedf21e017ebb59232dd44a) It's not easy, but you start to consider them more useful when you become very familiar with them (i.e. when you know them very intimately). At that point, you recognize them without effort, so code becomes more readable and intent-revealing (if it's has been written by someone who knows the patterns well, of course). You also start to learn their trade-offs better, so you also know when not to apply them. The learning process is slow, but definitely worth it 😊 [Romain Rochegude](https://hashnode.com/@RomainRochegude) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fecfa6fb2cf2458fe3251ac) Hi, I like your article very much! I'm just more mitigated about naming: I see tons of developers using a lot of terms like "strategy", "factory", "facade", etc. But we should focus on expressive naming in the domain context and these suffixes should disappear. After all, they are simply patterns... [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fecfa6fb2cf2458fe3251ac#reply-5fed0192b2cf2458fe3251f7) Thanks Romain! 🙏 What you say about naming is true, but I am not saying that pattern names should appear in the code, and I am not talking about patterns from the GoF book only. Pattern names are important during design discussions. For example, "dependency injection" is a pattern. Imagine that, during a design discussion, you have to explain to somebody else how to solve a problem applying dependency injection, but you cannot use this term. It would take much longer, wouldn't it? That's the point about pattern names. They allow you to convey more information with less words. [Anshu Shandilya](https://hashnode.com/@ashn) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fecd22cb2cf2458fe324fbd) Thank you sir for an amazing article on clearing out this. As a fresher I usually get stuck at the point whether it will be relevant to learning DP or not. But, today you have cleared all doubts and given some solid reasons to prioritize the Design pattern. [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fecd22cb2cf2458fe324fbd#reply-5fed02d1b2cf2458fe325213) Thanks Anshu! I am very happy to read this! 🙏 I think that the key point is that, when you learn about patterns, you do not only learn patterns. You gain much more! That's why they are a good investment. [Maxi Contieri](https://hashnode.com/@mcsee) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fec911fb2cf2458fe324afa) Amazing Article, Mario! Eric's book is definitive a _must read_ Many people stick to the original _gang of four_ patterns, but we learned a lot, discovered many new ones and also deprecated some. They never updated their book for reasons beyond this article and our profession continued to evolve. [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fec911fb2cf2458fe324afa#reply-5feca5c0b2cf2458fe324cdd) Thanks Maxi! Yes, you are right. A long time has passed and that's why I think it makes sense to wonder whether design patterns are still relevant. But, in this article, I wanted to talk about benefits of the very notion of 'design pattern', not necessarily the patterns that are described in the GoF book. I am not sure that this is clear in the article, but I do mention the DDD book and also 'Dependency Injection', which is a design pattern that is clearly not from the GoF book. [Apoorv Tyagi](https://hashnode.com/@apoorvtyagi) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fec8611b2cf2458fe324935) Amazing article [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) 👍 I didn't know that this is even a question whether design patterns are relevant or not. Design patterns are even taught in CS degrees (not very detail though). So I always assumed that they're important as they're helpful to solve problems whose solution has been thought through already plus you added another 4 good points here in this article. [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 30, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5fec8611b2cf2458fe324935#reply-5feca4a7b2cf2458fe324c9c) Thanks Apoorv! Yes, it's indeed a question. I run a poll in Twitter some time ago and 20% of the people voted 'No'. That's a valid opinion, but I wanted to give an elaborate answer about why I believe otherwise. [Matt Moll](https://hashnode.com/@MattCodeJourney) [Dec 29, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5feb7709017ebb59232d9fcb) Really good article Mario! I'm an advocate for design patterns so this article resonates a lot! They might not be as used as before, but they still have plenty of value for the reasons you mentioned. And I still find myself applying them frequently enough. Keep the quality articles coming! [Mario Cervera](https://hashnode.com/@macerub) [Dec 29, 2020](https://hashnode.com/posts/are-design-patterns-still-relevant/5feb60d2017ebb59232d9e42/comment/5feb7709017ebb59232d9fcb#reply-5feb78bb017ebb59232da00f) Thanks for your kind words Matt! 🙏 Yes, exactly. Many people believe they are not relevant anymore because we have more advanced tools that make them unnecessary. But that's not true, in my opinion. Patterns have plenty of benefits that are not so obvious, and I wanted to highlight them here 😊